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com% 2Fsearch Debunking Christianity This Blog has been created for the purpose of debunking Evangelical Christianity. We are ex-Christians, ex-ministers, and even ex-apologists for the Christian faith. We are now freethinkers, skeptics, agnostics, and atheists. With the diversity of our combined strengths we seek to debunk Christianity.
strong and weak atheism (see below): As a view there is no such thing as strong or weak atheism. If you don't think is true, then you are not, by definition, an atheist. The distinction you want to draw comes in when we consider the justification for . Some atheists claim to have very powerful grounds for thinking to be true. Other atheists would say that they have adequate, but not decisive, grounds for thinking to be true. Some might say that they have little or even no grounds for but believe it anyway, perhaps for emotional reasons. All of these we might class as holding to a weak atheism. Now notice that what's strong or weak here is not itself, for atheists all regard that statement as true; rather what's strong or weak is the case they offer in support of : some claim the evidence for is overwhelming, while others are more modest in their assessment of the case for . What is important to see here is that the strength or weakness has to do, not with the claim, but with the justification being offered on behalf of that claim. Craig that the atheist has his own burden of proof: You're right that I have only to show that God exists in order to show that your claim is false. But if I fail to offer such a case, does that show that your claim is true? Until you present your case, our agnostic friend will still be left suspended in doubt, not knowing whether is true or false. For example, Austin Dacey and Lewis Vaughan write, What if these arguments purporting to establish that God exists are failures? Lack of supporting reasons or evidence for a proposition does not show that the proposition is false (The Case for Humanism, 2003, p 162). As I say, there is nothing particularly controversial about this. We should be able to agree that anyone making a knowledge claim needs to have some adequate justification of that claim. Popular level atheists cannot in good conscience go on shirking their share of the burden of proof, especially when they make such extraordinarily strong claims as that God almost certainly does not exist. Part of the debate between theists and atheists is in arguing who has the burden of proof. I understand that if someone said they saw a car levitate then that person would have the burden of proof. We're talking about whether there is a God who created the universe, and most people in the Occident believe that such a God exists. When we add to this the people in the Orient, then most everyone in the world believes there is some kind of god. They demand that we show there is no God precisely because we are in the minority. Now I realize that majorities do not decide such issues. But from their perspective atheists have the burden of proof since it seems obvious there is a god of some sort. In such an environment it is still legitimate to argue who has the burden of proof, like Keith Parsons did in his book, God and the Burden of Proof. But then the question arises, who has the burden of proof to show that the other side has the burden of proof? Such debates could be endless, even if they are important and sometimes persuasive, since what persuades a person is, after all, person related. Anyway, I believe soft-agnosticism is the default position. We should all use that as a platform from which to begin our metaphysical enquiry. Therefore, anyone leaving the default position has the burden of proof.
must affirm so many things that if any single one of them is false she will fall off that ladder. But the move to atheism from soft-agnosticism is a very small step to make by comparison.
The Religious Condition (rough draft) part 02 Part 2 of the rough draft follows RELIGION AND THE MIND: CONFIRMATION BIAS People who study a concept in which they have no emotional investment are going to offer more reliable conclusions than those who want the concept to yield a specific result. For instance, if you wanted safety information on a used car, would it be wiser to trust the word of a used car salesperson or the findings of a consumer report? I hope that you would trust the consumer report over the salesperson because the salesperson has a vested interest in the quality of his products and an even larger one in getting you to accept his opinion on his products. The consumer report, on the other hand, would likely have no interest in advancing a one-sided view of any product. Similarly, if you wanted to obtain information on the historicity and veracity of Islam, would you ask an Islamic scholar who has been taught about Islamic sanctity since childhood, or would you ask a secular scholar with no emotional investment in Islam? Would you not also do the same for Hinduism, Mormonism, Buddhism, etc? If you utilize the same reasoning and choose the unbiased scholar in each instance, as you very well should, why make an exception only for Christianity? Scholars who hold no emotional investments in Christianity present the most unbiased conclusions on Christianity simply because they are more open during their studies to accept evidence that contradicts their tentative conclusions. Just as the used car salesperson will be hesitant to acknowledge and relay information that is damaging to the quality of his vehicles, the Christian scholar will be hesitant to acknowledge and relay information that is damaging to the veracity of his religion. We have no reason to believe that belief in Christianity provides a special insight into the veracity because every religion can make the exact same claim. The opinions of individuals with ego involvement, emotional investments, or vested interests in the outcome of a debatable issue are less likely to change when confronted with new information because people have an innate inclination to seek only evidence that confirms their pre-established beliefs. We can describe this phenomenon, termed confirmation bias, as the tendency to seek out answers that will confirm our beliefs and ignore answers that will not. Research has long established the presence of this phenomenon in persuasive psychology. Rather, such variables as genetic predispositions, parental predilections, sibling influences, peer pressures, educational experiences, and life impressions all shape the personality preferences and emotional inclinations that, in conjunction with numerous social and cultural influences, lead us to make certain belief choices. Rarely do any of us sit down before a table of facts, weight them pro and con, and choose the most logical and rational belief, regardless of what we previously believed. Instead, the facts of the world come to us through the colored filters of the theories, hypotheses, hunches, biases, and prejudices we have accumulated through our lifetime. We then sort through the body of data and select those most confirming what we already believe, and ignore or rationalize away those that are disconfirming.
According to Shermer, psychologists have discovered a process that people follow when given the task of selecting the right answer to a problem. Individuals will immediately form a hypothesis and look only for examples to confirm it, do not seek evidence to disprove the hypothesis, are very slow to change the hypothesis even when it is obviously wrong, adopt overly-simple hypotheses or strategies for solutions if the information is too complex, and form hypotheses about coincidental relationships they observe if there is no true solution.
Moreover, by adopting these overly simple hypotheses and strategies for complex issues, we gain immediate gratification. Shermer elaborates: Good and bad things happen to both good and bad people, seemingly at random. Scientific explanations are often complicated and require training and effort to work through. Superstition and belief in fate and the supernatural provide a simpler path through life's complex maze.
Cialdini prov...
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